TRUMP on professional athletes kneeling for the anthem: "They're all saying, 'oh, it has nothing to do with the flag, it's the way we've been treated.' In the meantime, they're making $15,000,000 a year … they shouldn't get the politics involved." pic.twitter.com/ooBDR1eU1u

This is, as is often the case when Trump speaks, garbled nonsense. Most NFL players don’t make $15 million a year. Around 40 of them are set to earn at least that much next year, and only the league’s top stars can expect to make big, sustained salaries year after year. The average NFL salary, Forbes found in 2016, was $2.1 million, but of course that average is inflated by the huge contracts at the top of the scale. The median is lower. And most NFL players spend just a few years in the league — while enduring the sort of physical damage that will linger with them for the rest of their lives.

Beyond all that, they’re worth the money! The owners wouldn’t pay it otherwise. They earn every bit of it, and doing so in no way negates whether they get to have opinions on outside matters.

And all of this is beyond the point. Donald Trump parlayed his work as a developer into tabloid fame, then that into reality television fame and, that, ultimately, into the presidency of the United States. He never shied from discussing politics, cultivating his base long before officially becoming a politician (all while, if you take his word for it, making at least $15 million a year):

So Trump using every avenue to build his brand is fine, but NFL players can’t use their platform to spread concern about the treatment of minorities in the United States?

Trump attempts to use a popular tactic here to change the narrative:

“I’m all for the athletes. I think it’s great. I love sports. But they shouldn’t get the politics involved. When you’re in a stadium and they broadcast that national (anthem), you gotta stand and you gotta be proud and you gotta have your hand up and gotta do everything that’s right. And then go out and play really tough football. And once you leave that stadium, go and do whatever you want to do. Run for office. Do whatever.”

Of course playing the anthem and unrolling a flag almost as large as a football field is already political. And having the absolute right to protest anything or everything that the flag might stand for without rebuke from the government is the foundation of the United States, guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. This country exists as a protest against places that demanded otherwise. The President saying you “gotta” do anything during the playing of the national anthem should startle anyone who cares about freedom.

But nothing they’ve done has ignited 1/100th as much discussion as Kaepernick’s peaceful protest. It’s never been *about* the flag but it was aimed at the flag precisely because it would work as well as it has. Setting up or working with charities, visiting schools or rec centers, doing “whatever” to try to change the world … none of it was going to shake people as much as kneeling during the anthem has. Kaepernick deciphered a way to effect change by making us uncomfortable.

Perhaps one day we’ll recall his unfairly brief football career as a mere prelude to bigger things. Trump reveled in making it to the gossip pages as a younger man. Kaepernick has given up a career to become a symbol, reviled by millions. They both had their reasons.

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